The global warming resulted from increased consumption of fossil fuel is becoming an important environmental issue today. Therefore, it is crucial to use the greenhouse gas (CO2) constructively, after separation from its emission source, to reduce greenhouse effect/global warming as well as to synthesize variety of organic products.
Cycloaddition of CO2 with epoxides to produce cyclic carbonates (e.g., ethylene carbonate and propylene carbonate) is one of a few industrial synthetic processes that utilize CO2 as a raw material. Cyclic carbonates are widely used as electrolyte components in lithium ion batteries, polar solvents, and intermediates in the production of pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals.
There is ample literature available on synthesis of organic carbonates from CO2 as it is a very attractive method. The research is progressed in this direction because, using CO2 as an abundant and renewable carbon source, also avoids the use of toxic and environmentally harmful phosgene. The organic carbonates, especially cyclic carbonates, are commercially important; whose usefulness permits their applications in several fields of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, such as manufacturing of engineering plastics, electrolyte solvents for lithium ion batteries, organic solvents, green reagents, and fuel additives etc. In literature cyclic carbonates are synthesized by using epoxides, diols and olefins as starting material using toxic and expensive metal catalyst under harsh reaction conditions.
An article titled “Synthesis of cyclic carbonates from epoxide and CO2” by Michael North, Riccardo Pasquale and Carl Young published in Green Chemistry Issue 9, 2010, discloses synthesis of cyclic carbonates from epoxides and CO2 in presence of a catalyst, as shown below:

Another article titled “Efficient synthesis of cyclic carbonates from CO2 and epoxides over cellulose/KI by Shuguang Liang, et al. in Chem. Commun., 2011, 47, 2131-2133, discloses cellulose/KI as a very active, selective, stable, and recyclable catalyst for the cycloaddition reactions of CO2 and epoxides due to the excellent synergetic effect of cellulose and KI. The reaction is as shown below:

Another article titled “Synthesis of cyclic carbonates uses monometallic and helical bimetallic, aluminium complexes” by Jose A. Castro-Osma et al in Catal. Sci. Technol., 2012, 2, 1021-1026, investigated the use of aluminium complexes of a series of bis(pyrazol-1-yl)methane derived ligands as catalysts for the synthesis of cyclic carbonates from carbon dioxide and epoxides and found that a bimetallic, helical, heteroscorpionate complex displayed significantly higher catalytic activity than the corresponding monometallic complexes, as shown below:

Yet another article titled “Conversion of carbon dioxide and olefins into cyclic carbonates in water” by Nicolas Eghbali and Chao-Jun Li in Green Chem., 2007, 9, 213-215, discloses a method to convert alkenes and CO2 into cyclic carbonates directly in water by using N-bromosuccinimide (NBS) together with 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undecenc-7-ene (DBU) in water, or by using a catalytic amount of bromide ion together with aqueous H2O2 as shown below.

An article entitled “transformation of CO2” by Sakakura in Chem review, 2007, 107, 2365-2387, wherein, over view on synthesis of cyclic carbonates is discussed as per the schemes below: